John M. McMahon Quotes (1 Quote)

Poetry often introduces a mythological dimension which reflects the close connections between the gods and commonly encountered trees. A passage from Vergil's Georgics, in which the poet enumerates grafted trees and miraculous growth, incorporates several such mythological references myrtles, sacred to Venus the poplar, crown of Hercules and the acorns of Jupiter's symbolic oak, referring to his grove at Dodona. The pine was held sacred to Pan, the Roman Faunus, and in his Eclogues Vergil describes the pastoral god's home on Mt. Maenalus in Arcadia. Propertius stresses the god's fondness for the tree, and Horace, for his part, dedicates a pine to the goddess Diana in a famous ode.